Route to Management - Help Needed

[summer_wilson]

Hi guys -

Sorry it has been a while, with work - LL - and excercise there isnt much time for anything else.

Well I hit my target two weeks early, so 3 stone gone (45lbs in total), from a size 16/18 to an 8/10 and am very happy ...

BUT ............

I dont know what has happened, I was meant to start managment last Saturday but knew that I had a big free party so made the decision to drink (free champagne - who wouldnt). Was fine about this and thought ok abstain on the Sunday and then start mgt on the Monday - HOWEVER ... all I have wanted to do for the last four days is eat crap (chocolate and crisps) the odd thing is that I have not craved for these the whole way through the diet and dont know why I have started now.

Having had brilliant will power all the way so far - I just have not been able to stop ... and have actually eaten some of both !!! I am not killing myself over it as I realise that it is a mind thing and that I will get over this period, but really need some helpful advice as I can't seem to stop the cravings.

Am on one protein meal a day and due to start with the lettuce tonight and herbs etc - but feel so bad with the cravings that am wondering whether to go back to the four packs a day to get these things out of my head ..

Please help ....

a woeful, dissppointed summer wilson ...

[Cerulean]

Hi Summer - glad you posted this as I am sort of going through the same thing - unplanned of course and a little off the discipline I wanted to show, but I have just had my wisdom teeth out so I am telling myself that I just need to get through today (they've drugged me up so much that although and I very happy and pain free, I'm not really acting from a terribly conscious place right now so I am allowing myself a slip )

I had expected that feeling rough and beat up (people had prepared me for the worst and told me my jaw would be practically dislocated and bruised and I wouldn't be able to eat solids for a few days) that I would just about be able to get a few shakes down and stay on the plan, but I have been eating icecream and fruit and chocolate and steak and kidney pudding and cauliflower cheese and loving it.

I refuse to feel guilty as what I am doing is just looking at why I eat like this - and it seems to be the following:

I was rarely ill as a child or as an adult therefore being ill was always a time of just getting over it as quickly as possible - I was often quite brutal to myself and rarely let myself have time off work for illness. So, I am experimenting with just letting go.

I confess, I am on something of a morphine high and my painkillers are hilariously mood-enhancing (I never take so much as a paracetemol in day to day life!) so I'm hardly in a place to make rational non-fun sensible decisions - no one let me out shopping tomorrow!

I am also still numb from the operation and so I don't know the full extent of the pain until this wears off so I am a bit frightened.

I am alone but can't really chat to friends and family on the phone or in person (too drowsy to actually want company and talking is an effort and I mentioned that LL has actually left me with very poor social skills over the last month or so) so yes, I am letting food be love a little - I am aware of this.

I have consciously avoided buying any of my typical binge/purge foods (yes, icecream and chocolate were never on my list - I hate throwing them up because they are gloopy - sorry to be graphic) - I have not had any bread, meat, cheese, crisps or cake. And although I did contemplate Macdonalds (a classic self-loathing choice for me) I just couldn't do it. I have only given myself stuff my mum would have given to make me feel better and all of it good quality - not my usual cheap binge rubbish. So yeah - not rational - not standard behaviour - a real lapse, but a lapse with very specific choices that I am genuinely pleased about.

So yeah - I have decided to drop the caloric intake today and just have chicken soup and fruit in separate meals as long as all goes well - then maybe kick in the first of the packs later tonight and then drop the bars for the first three days like you would on days one - four on foundation, hit real ketosis to drop my glycogen back to scratch like I would in week one-two of foundation and then begin management from empty glycogen stores so I know I'm starting from where someone who had done it completely by the book would be starting from.

Sorry that's a bit long winded - but that's my plan!